Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer

by David VanDyke

  “This shows Australia’s production over the last year. The lines represent GDP, space lift capacity, and the total output we have moved into space.”

  “Are these figures correct?” Skolbourg’s voice held an edge of disbelief.

  “Absolutely. If anything, they are conservative. Yes, Australia’s GDP has almost doubled in the last eighteen months. Its maximum surge space lift capacity now exceeds three thousand tons a day, though the average sustained number is about a third of that. And the production output measured in dollar terms now exceeds one trillion per year.”

  “And the curves?”

  “The curves are sustainable for the next eight years at least. Until the enemy arrives.”

  “That’s amazing,” the NS minister marveled.

  “But it’s not enough,” Absen interjected. “If we are to meet our goals, the output curves of all of Earth’s nations must look like this. If we can’t, we won’t have what we need to beat the Destroyer.”

  “Yes,” Ekara took up the argument smoothly. “I am here with full support of the Free Communities Council and its chairman. They have empowered me to place a proposal before you. What we must do, I believe, is to create a world command economy based on the Chinese and Australian model. Only by rigorous central planning, rationing, and sacrifice can we generate the enormous amount of materiel we believe we need. Every day is vital. This is what we must do.”

  “We have only your word that these things are true,” Skolbourg said weakly, still stunned by the numbers on the screen before her, representing as they did complete disruption of standard economic theory.

  “The figures are easy to verify,” Ekara replied. “In fact, I invite anyone to come and tour Exmouth Spaceport, or look at the explosive growth around Australia’s cities. Our population has increased by over ten percent in one year alone due to massive immigration of Asian workers from the poorer and most heavily populated areas. We have provided training and jobs, and everyone now maintains a standard six day, seventy-two hour week. Because of the Eden Plague, workers are able to sustain such a pace without difficulty.”

  “But the quality of life?” Skolbourg asked.

  Every leader in the room turned to stare at her, and Absen heard what might have been sniggers from the aides’ seats arrayed in back. “Belay that,” he snapped toward the sound, then turned to the NS minister. “Ma’am, let’s be frank. You say you represent the Neutral States, but your alliance is heavily Euro-centric. Europe sustained the fewest casualties both from the nuclear bombs and from the plagues.” He leaned forward to stare intently at the woman. “Some of your citizens seem to be still living in denial, unable to really grasp that humanity is under threat of extinction. ‘Quality of life’ can only exist if you are alive.” His last words rose to almost a shout before he calmed himself. “The Neutral States will have to make sacrifices just like the rest of us.”

  Secretary General Chang shifted in her seat, subtly calling attention. “China agrees, and concurs in principle.” The rest of the participants at the table and those underlings around the edge of the room evidenced surprise with low mutterings and glances, quickly stilled. “We will work closely with all of our allies to, as you say, ‘make it happen.’” Beside her, the North Korean general nodded silently.

  Skolbourg licked her lips, suddenly in the spotlight. “I will bring the proposal to the full Neutral States Assembly. Perhaps I can get them to agree. Minister?” She turned pointedly to Kredenko, her putative ally.

  He nodded slowly, brow furrowed in thought. “Yes,” he replied, glancing at Chang. “I believe my country will support this idea, and will support Minister Skolbourg before the full Assembly. The details, of course, must be hammered out.”

  “Of course,” Tyler interjected, his eyes bright with surprise and pleasure. “Let us put it to an official recorded vote. I move for a resolution that all the political entities represented here cooperate to create a worldwide command economy, managed by a multi-representative body to be created later.”

  “Seconded,” Chang immediately said. A smile seemed briefly to touch her eyes as Tyler glanced her way.

  Absen held up a hand. “All in favor, signify by raising your hand and saying ‘aye.’”

  Seven more hands went up and seven voices said “aye.”

  Spontaneous applause broke out around the room as a double dozen staffers and functionaries cheered and shook hands. Beneath the noisy confusion, Tyler leaned over to speak quietly to Absen. “This has no legal force, you know, Henrich. This isn’t even a recognized body authorized to vote.”

  Absen chuckled. “Ain’t politics grand? It doesn’t matter what the legalities are. If I’m right, hours from now the news will sweep around the world and the fiction will become reality as overwhelming public support ensures no one backs out.”

  “But what about this EarthFleet thing?” Tyler jerked his head in the direction of the shield.

  Absen’s eyebrows went up in amusement. “Just watch.” He leaned back to rap on the table. The noise level in the room dropped as the aides and attendants quickly sat down and shut up, and the principals turned to look at him. “I would like to make one other motion here. I move that all of you here bring the EarthFleet proposal to your respective deciding bodies for consideration.”

  “Seconded,” Rae Denham said, suddenly seeming to glow with charisma. Absen wondered how she did it. He suspected she used pheromones.

  “But what is the proposal exactly?” Kredenko asked.

  Absen waved at Tobias, who passed out data drives to each of the leaders. “In essence, extraplanetary space will become EarthFleet territory. Military forces will be transferred to it or will have to return to Earth. Personnel will be freely allowed to renounce national citizenship and formally join the Fleet. All private or national property will be respected.” He held up a hand. “I know this raises a few dozen questions right away. It’s all in those files. For now, though, I intend to operate as if the plan will be approved.”

  “And if it is not?” Kredenko growled.

  Absen fixed him with a stony stare. “Then God help us all.”

  ***

  “That’s a lot to hit them with,” Rae said to Absen as they sat in his office-cum-quarters sharing a bottle of Scotch. She knocked back three fingers with an appreciative sigh and poured another as she eyed a strange twisted pillar leaning in the corner.

  “I know. I’m hoping they will spend all their energy on the frontal attack – the economic proposal – and view my flanking maneuver of the EarthFleet plan as a fait accompli.”

  “Or, they will pass the economic brief and then bog down arguing about the Fleet, if you believe in Murphy’s Law.”

  Absen raised his glass. “Or one of Parkinson’s. The smaller the expenditure, the bigger the argument, wasn’t it?”

  “Something like that.” Rae raised hers in return. “But you’re not going to wait for their decision. I can see it in your eyes.” I know you aren’t the type to sit back and wait.

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t have done anything as drastic as renouncing my citizenship if I wasn’t pushing all in. However, I have some secret backers.”

  Rae sat back in the comfortable leather chair, fiddling absently with her glass as it sat on the table at arm’s length. “Let me guess. Markis, which generally means the whole FC.”

  Absen nodded, eyes fixed on Rae’s face.

  “President McKenna…”

  “Actually no, but Tyler is in my corner. He’ll persuade his boss.”

  “And the Chinese, I think.”

  Absen sipped and cocked an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Admiral. Somehow you got them on your side, which was the key to the whole thing. Chang stuck her oar in at just the right times. What did you promise them?”

  “The same thing that I want. Legitimacy and recognition.”

  “They don’t have that already?”

  Absen shook his head. “Not really. D
uring the Second Cold War they expanded their borders in some specific ways. They finally managed to annex Taiwan without major bloodshed, though the acquisition remains in dispute. They want that settled. The legacy powers still do not recognize China’s full sovereignty over Tibet or Mongolia. There are a dozen smaller irritants, pieces of Viet Nam and Laos and Burma that they are occupying illegally. I told them I would support the concept of a Greater China when the time came.”

  Rae idly tapped her glass on the tabletop. “You promised they could keep what they took? De facto annexation?”

  “I…implied it. That was the carrot. I also reminded them of the stick.” Absen waved a pointed finger above his head. “EarthFleet has hundreds of nuclear weapons and holds the high ground of space. I can hit Earth, but Earth can’t hit me. They may think I would never use them, but can they be sure? More importantly, I will eventually command an armada to fight the Destroyer. If we win, I will still command it.”

  “They want to get on the good side of Julius Caesar.”

  Absen laughed. “Yes. The eternal problem of how to keep the conquering general from seizing Rome. And I intend to use that implied threat to do what has to be done.” He stood up to get a box of cigars off his desk, bringing it, a lighter and an ashtray to the table.

  Rae reached over to pick up a stogie from the box, cutting the end off and firing it up. “Funny, Ilona hated smoking, but Raphael…I think he, like any Pure Form, viewed it as one of many pleasures that awaited him upon blending, and so I find myself having acquired the taste.” She puffed it to life and held the smoke in her mouth, rolling the cigar between her thumb and middle finger as she puffed.

  “Few enough pleasures in this world,” Absen replied as he lit his own. “Why deny yourself?” His eyes held hers for an unusually long time.

  Rae’s gaze sharpened in return, and she forced herself to be kind. After all, he had no idea Skull still lived, or even that she had more than the one child to occupy her time. “Why Henrich…that almost sounds like a proposition.”

  Absen smiled faintly, letting the smoke waft forth. “Call it an inquiry. It’s been over a year since Alan Denham died.” He shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, Henrich. My loss is too fresh,” Rae went on, “and I have too many balls in the air right now. Even with my utmost efforts and the Memetech I control, Earth is in enormous peril. I can’t take the time or expend the energy for a relationship, no matter how tempting.” There. That should put him off for now.

  Absen’s expression turned wry. “Nicely done. Well, if we don’t survive, it won’t matter much, but if we do…I’ll inquire again, how’s that?”

  “Fair enough. Now…” She pointed to the object in the corner. “What the hell is that? I feel like I should know, but…”

  Absen stood to pick up the thing with a grunt. About ten centimeters across and a meter long, it appeared to be made of a metallic substance, with pits and scarring all along its length. “Hyper core. One of the small ones that hit Orion. The scientists were done with it and it was sitting around in a lab somewhere so I had them bring it up here. I’m going to have them mount it on the wall or something.” He set it down with a heavy clunk on the table.

  Rae leaned over it. “Biologically gestated ferrocrystal composite matrix. Like the penetrator in a ground tank’s sabot round. It’s what makes the hypers so deadly, along with their speed. Simple, elegant, reusable. I could have my ship make these if it were necessary, though the request list for Meme-grown materials is always several hundred times longer than what I can actually do.”

  Absen waved a hand. “We can manufacture our own ferrocrystal well enough using nanotech vat assembly. We’ll probably never build similar projectiles, though. If we want cheap bullets, we’ll use railgun spheres. If we pay the cost to make a missile with a fusion engine and a guidance system, we’re going to stick a cheap fusion warhead with a bomb-pumped beam system on it. Can’t put a missile in a railgun; those things generate thousands of Gs at launch, and the components can’t take it.”

  “Meme biotechnology is inherently different,” Rae agreed. “They use what works best for them. This works for us. They do use machines, you know. Some.”

  “Really?” Absen sat down again, looking interested.

  “They create what they call Purelings, which are blank cloned bodies of subject races blended with new Meme mitoses. These are then downloaded with carefully selected skill sets and memories. Basically they are soldier-slaves, janissaries completely loyal to the Empire. They can wear armor or vacuum suits and use mechanical weapons manufactured on subject worlds, or even aboard ship. We might see some during this attack.”

  “Really?” he repeated, now completely focused on this unexpected military topic.

  “Yes. It’s been in the reports your intel people are debriefing me for. Haven’t you been reading them?”

  “Not closely enough, I guess. I remember something about enemy ground troops. That’s why we have Marines. I’d love to hear more details.”

  Rae rubbed her forehead. “You can get all that from your staff. Really, there are whole sub-reports on likely enemy close-combat forces. I think our time here would be better spent on other things.”

  “True enough.” Absen was long used to prioritizing his work, leaving lower-level items to his staff. If he tried to do it all he would never sleep or eat.

  Rae finished her stogie and ground out the butt in the ashtray, using the pause in the conversation to change subjects. “Next world-shattering topic?”

  Absen chuckled as he reached for a tablet, tapping an icon to bring up his notes. “I do have several potential EarthFleet issues I want to talk about. The Ceres-Callisto shipyards and bases, and the uses of the moons of Mars, as well as the courses of action the Red Team has come up with. Not to influence your brainstorming; just operational things, like how it’s going to get done. I know it’s not fair to keep going to your well too many times, but there are some things that only your ship and your technology can do right now, and the sooner we get started on those things, the farther along we will be when Earthtech catches up.”

  “All right, let’s take them one by one.” Rae pulled a tablet of her own from a pocket, and they spent the next hour whacking weeds.

  Chapter 9

  “Earth’s defense and security is now EarthFleet’s responsibility,” Absen declared in the morning – his morning – press conference announcing its existence. “We are now Earth’s military, owned by no nation or alliance. We are neutral, and focused outward. The three political blocs of Earth will provide us with resources as they deem, and we will deploy those resources as we see fit. We will listen to everyone, but be controlled by no one.”

  The world greeted this announcement with a great deal of skepticism, but a trickle of personnel from Earth wishing to join slowly grew into a flood, mostly in the junior and middle ranks.

  This evident popularity caused an unintended side effect. The three power blocs approved the coordination of the world economy under a new body: the Combined Council of Earth. Absen found it interesting and actually heartening that they had seen EarthFleet as a potential political rival and had banded together to ensure their superiority. Frankly, he did not want to be the leader of a new sovereign entity. This new assembly would actually have more power at a higher level than he had hoped.

  Specifically, their new Combined Council claimed to be the civilian supervision for EarthFleet, not only claiming sovereignty over resources but administration and strategy as well. They probably expected him to try to buck it and hand skeptics a victory, but he’d much rather take the high road and accept this newly declared state of affairs. Had he not, the naysayers would claim his unwillingness to listen to the Council proved that he was laying the groundwork for a military coup, rather than simply trying to create a unified and effective military force as he claimed.

  Of course he immediately accepted their supervision, in principle at least, via a worldwide press release. Absen had
been willing but never comfortable to be the dictator of a new quasi-nation. A more ambitious man might have turned them down, but he found himself in the enviable position of getting nearly everything he wanted. And, he mused, what Markis and Nguyen apparently wanted: a more united Earth with the Free Communities first among equals.

  He had the wit to wonder whether he had somehow been maneuvered into his actions in furtherance of their goals, but then abandoned that line of thought. Second-guessing himself had never been his habit, though the practice intruded into his thoughts more often lately.

  Once it became clear that EarthFleet would accept civilian control its popularity soared even higher. Absen figured that couldn’t hurt him in what was likely to be a kind of constant negotiation with his new masters. While he was no master of politics, he had no doubt that he could identify those of his new service that were, and put them to use.

  Absen’s next major meeting the following day included an eclectic mix of military personnel, scientists and engineers, all of mid-grade to senior rank. Despite many clamoring to be involved, the admiral ensured that only new actual EarthFleet personnel would attend. All had already served notice to their home nations that they would be renouncing their respective allegiances, and signed a “Citizen of Earth Declaration” he and Rae and his JAG had hammered out together.

  Their number surprised him, and the percentage of those contacted: more than half had said yes right away, increasing every hour. He wasn’t sure exactly how the mix of EarthFleet and national personnel would integrate and function together in their jobs, but he had spent enough time in NATO to know it could work, with strong clear leadership.

  Rae watched and listened invisibly from an adjacent room. Absen knew her cooperation would be vital, but did not want to muddy the waters by having her present.

  Absen looked around the large meeting room and rapped it to order with a gavel shaped from a piece of Orion’s damaged armor. “All right, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to my first staff meeting as Commander, EarthFleet.” He looked around the room and let that sink in. “Everyone here is either already head of his or her respective joint division, or is hereby appointed to that position. Non-EarthFleet personnel cannot be a J-head. I know that will be awkward for some of you. My staff has already contacted those above you and offered them their chance to join. If they do, they’ll still be transferred. That’s your reward for your early commitment. By the time you return to your offices, one way or the other they will be gone. Understood?”